Last Days

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 21 This week of feted geniuses, busted
hussies, and foiled terrorism kicks off with foiled terrorism,
as the week’s first would-be terrorist appeared in a Denver federal
courtroom on charges of lying to federal agents during an investigation
into an alleged al Qaeda terror plot against NYC. Details come
from ABC News, which identifies today’s suspect as 24-year-old
Najibullah Zazi, a legal immigrant from Afghanistan whom
authorities believe to be the alleged plot’s ringleader, and who’s been
tracked by the FBI and CIA for more than a year. During this time, Zazi
reportedly traveled twice to Pakistan for explosives training from al
Qaeda—FBI agents report finding nine handwritten pages on the
manufacture and handling of explosives, detonators, and fusing systems
in Zazi’s possession—and ran up more than $50,000 in debt on 20
credit cards, suggesting he might be preparing for a suicide mission.
Then came his doings in the weeks before his arrest, as chronicled by
the FBI and CIA and reported by CNN: On September 9, Zazi started his
cross-country drive from Colorado to New York City in a rental car
laden with would-be explosives components. On September 10, he arrived
in Flushing, Queens, where he reportedly shopped for muriatic acid
before apparently becoming suspicious that he was being tracked by
authorities. On September 12—the day after what authorities
believe was supposed to have been a 9/11 attack—Zazi flew back
home to Colorado, where this past Saturday he was arrested along with
his father, Mohammed Zazi, and Queens resident Ahmad Afzali, all of
whom have been charged with lying to federal investigators. Good work,
FBI and CIA.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22 Speaking of good work, the week
continues with the announcement of the 24 recipients of the John D.
and Catherine T. MacArthur “genius awards” for 2009, two dozen
arts-and-science visionaries who include not one but two previous
winners of Stranger Genius Awards: James Longley, the
Seattle-based documentarian behind the Oscar-nominated Iraq in
Fragments, and Heather McHugh, the beloved Seattle poet
whose work can be read on page 19. Huge congratulations to both Longley
and McHugh, who along with the 22 other winners will each receive
$100,000 a year for five years, no strings attached. As MacArthur
Foundation president Robert Gallucci told the New York Times,
the MacArthur grants are distinctive because they reward the
expectation of future achievement. “We’re looking for you to continue
in a creative way, without anyone looking over your shoulder.” Full
speed ahead, confirmed geniuses.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23 In much stupider news: Today we
travel 30 miles north of Seattle to Everett, where a number of
“bikini espresso” stands have allegedly become hotbeds of
prostitution. Details come from the Everett Daily Herald,
which reports that over the past year, Everett police have received
over 40 complaints about female baristas exposing their breasts,
genitals, and/or buttocks at bikini espresso stands around the
area. To investigate the business generating the most
complaints—Everett’s Grab-n-Go Espresso—undercover
detectives began posing as customers in mid-July and quickly amassed a
dossier of dubious doings. Among the witnessed activities described in
police reports: a “whipped cream show” in which two women sprayed
whipped cream on each other and licked it off, “peep shows” in which
baristas offered to expose their breasts and genitals for $20, and
“basketball games” in which customers threw wadded-up money at the
women who caught it in their underpants. Most significantly, detectives
reportedly witnessed Grab-n-Go baristas charging customers to touch
their bare breasts and naked buttocks, a transaction that falls
under the city’s definition of prostitution. Which brings us to today,
when five Grab-n-Go baristas—women aged 18 to 24—were
charged with violating the city’s adult-entertainment ordinance and
multiple counts of prostitution. “This was about alleged conduct, not
about what the women were wearing,” said Everett police sergeant Robert
Goetz to the Herald. “They could have been wearing parkas and if
they continued to conduct themselves that way, we still would have
filed the criminal charges.”

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24 Today we return to foiled
terrorism, as the FBI announces the arrest of two more terrorism
suspects. Suspect number one: Michael Finton, aka Talib
Islam, a 29-year-old Illinois man who allegedly attempted to detonate
what he believed was a one-ton truck bomb parked outside the Paul
Findley Federal Building and Courthouse in Springfield. Lucky for all,
as CNN reports, Finton’s collaborators in the would-be terror attack
were not fellow jihadists but undercover FBI agents. They had
been tracking Finton since February and responded to his would-be
detonation of a federal building by dragging him to a Springfield
courthouse on charges of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction
and attempted murder of federal employees. Suspect number two: Hosam
Maher Husein Smadi, the 19-year-old man arrested in Texas in a
similar undercover-FBI sting after allegedly dialing the cell-phone
number he believed would trigger the explosion of a Dallas skyscraper
but was actually the feds, informing him he was under arrest.
Again, good work, feds.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25 Speaking of dangerous psychos now under
arrest: The week continues with Randy Quaid, the pudgy pro actor
who earned top billing on the shit lists of countless Seattleites by
ruining then abandoning a 2007 production at the 5th Avenue
Theatre. Early the next year, this ruination-and-abandonment led to
Quaid’s being banned for life from Actors’ Equity and ordered to pay an
$82,000 fine. (At the Equity hearing, Quaid’s amazing wife, Evi,
reportedly blamed the charges against her husband on a “Nazi
plot” and kicked a 76-year-old Equity employee hard enough to draw
blood.) Which brings us to today, when news outlets around the
country picked up the heartening TMZ story “Randy and Evi Quaid
Arrested After Struggle in Marfa, Texas.” As TMZ reports, the
dastardly duo were picked up by Presidio County sheriff’s deputies
armed with felony arrest warrants accusing the Quaids of burglary,
conspiracy, and defrauding an innkeeper. Even better: “Deputies had to
wrestle Evi to the ground as she screamed loudly.” Accused of stiffing
the San Ysidro Ranch near Santa Barbara out of thousands of bucks, the
Quaids will be released on bail by the weekend. Stay tuned!

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 26 Speaking of people who were in the
eternally brilliant The Last Picture Show: Today brought the one
and only Cloris Leachman to the Pacific Northwest, where the
83-year-old film and TV star attended an honorary screening of The
Last Picture Show—for which she won a 1971 Academy
Award—at the Port Townsend Film Festival. “I like High
Anxiety more, but they are both such good films,” said Leachman to
the Peninsula Daily News. “Honestly, my favorite I ever did is
Young Frankenstein. That is a perfect film. It’s really a truly
great film.” In other news, Cloris Leachman is insane.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 27 Nothing happened today, unless you count
the arrest of Roman Polanski in Switzerland on a 32-year-old
statutory-rape charge or the last-minute clobbering of the lime green
Seattle Seahawks by the Chicago Bears.

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